Download “Case suffixes”, postpositions and the Phonological Word in

“Case suffixes”, postpositions and the Phonological Word in Hungarian
Abstract
In this paper I propose a new construction algorithm for the Phonological Word in Hungarian. Based on a
detailed discussion of the differences between so-called ‘postpositions’ and ‘case ‘suffixes’, I show that both
types of adpositional elements are of the same morphosyntactic category, and that Phonological Word status
depends not on an arbitrary division between affixes and syntactically free items, but on phonological
properties of the respective adpositions: Bisyllabic adpositions form Phonological Words on their own, while
monosyllabic adpositions are integrated into the Phonological Word of their lexical head. Generalizing this
result, I argue that all functional elements of Hungarian traditionally called ‘inflectional affixes’ are
syntactically independent functional heads integrated into the Phonological Word of a preceding lexical head
because they are prosodically too small. I show that apparently bisyllabic inflectional affixes must either be
decomposed into different markers or are underlyingly monosyllabic, and develop a ranking of optimalitytheoretic alignment constraints implementing the construction algorithm for the Phonological Word in formal
detail.
1.
Introduction
Descriptive tradition and orthographic convention suggest that Hungarian has two different types of functional
items corresponding to adpositions: case suffixes and postpositions. The main empirical evidence for this
distinction (Kiss, 2002:185) is that case suffixes (1-a,b) undergo vowel harmony with the preceding head noun
while postpositions (1-c,d) do not:1
(1)
Case suffixes and postpositions
a. a
ház-ban
b. a
kert-ben
c. a
ház
alatt
d. a kert
alatt
the house-in
the garden-in
the house under
the garden under
‘in the house’
‘in the garden’
‘under the house’
‘under the garden’
In this paper, I argue that case markers are part of the same Phonological Word (PWord) as their head nouns,
but syntactically independent units, in other words they are postpositions. This claim is consistent with the
independently motivated observation made in Nespor & Vogel (1986) that Hungarian vowel harmony is not
operative on the morphosyntactic word, but on the PWord. However, it requires reconsideration of their
definition of the PWord as a stem plus all following suffixes. I show that the crucial difference between “case
suffixes” and other postpositions is phonological - “case suffixes” are monosyllabic while other postpositions
are bisyllabic - and propose an optimality-theoretic analysis of PWords in Hungarian which predicts the
observed differences.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: In section 2, I introduce the analysis of the PWord in Hungarian
proposed by Nespor & Vogel (1986). In section 3, I discuss common properties of and differences between case
suffixes and postpositions, and conclude that the differences are purely phonological. Based on this
observation, I propose a new definition of the PWord in Hungarian in section 4, which is formally implemented
by the ranking of OT-constraints in section 5. Section 6 discusses another recent analysis of the case
suffix/postposition dichotomy in Hungarian by Asbury (2005). Section 7 contains a short summary of the
paper.
2.
The Phonological Word in Nespor & Vogel (1986)
Traditional descriptions of Hungarian state that the language exhibits vowel harmony at the word level. Thus
the suffixes in (2) harmonize with the corresponding stems in backness and partially also in rounding (2-a).
Harmony applies to inflection (2-a,b) and derivation (2-c) alike:
(2)
Examples for vowel harmony
a. ház-ak
‘houses’
house-PL
b. lát-unk
‘gardens’
garden-PL
‘we see’
see-1P
c. fá-tlan
kert-ek
‘treeless’
tree-less
szeret-ünk
görög-ök ‘Greeks’
Greek-PL
‘we love’
küld-ünk ‘we send’
love-1PL
send-1PL
szerencsé-tlen ‘unlucky’
nõ-tlen
luck-less
wife-less
‘wifeless’
Booij (1984) argues that the domain for vowel harmony is not the morphosyntactic, but the PWord. an
assumption fully taken over, along with the details of Booij's data and analysis, in the monograph on prosodic
phonology by Nespor & Vogel (1986, in the following: N&P), which I will use here as the basic reference point
for this type of analysis. The crucial argument for relating vowel harmony to the PWord is the fact that prefixes
and different stems in compounds fail to harmonize. In other words, prefixes (3-c,d) and stems (3-a,b) can be
combined with stems without changes in vowel quality:2,3,4
(3)
Failure of harmony in prefixation and compounding
a. Buda-Pest
Buda-Pest
‘Budapest’
b. könyv-tár
‘library’
book-collection
c. oda-menni ‘to go there’
there-go
d. be-utazni ‘to commute in’
in-commute
N&P’s analysis of these facts is based on the assumption that the PWord in Hungarian consists of a
(morphologically simple) stem and (if suffixes are present) all suffixes following this stem. Thus all of the
items in (4) are single morphosyntactic words, but only (4-a) and (4-b) form single PWords:
(4)
Prosodic structure of different morphological constructions
a. Stem + inflectional Suffix
[ lát-unk ]!
b. Stem + derivational suffix
[ fá-tlan ]!
c. Prefix + stem
[ be ]!- [ utazni ]!
d. Stem + stem compound
[ könyv ] !- [ -tár ]!
If vowel harmony is now restricted to the PWord in Hungarian, the different behavior of different
morphological constructions follows. Case suffixes and postpositions seem to fit neatly into this analysis: If
case suffixes are true suffixes, they should form a PWord with the stems to which they are attached, while
postpositions are independent stems and form their own PWords:
(5)
Prosodic structure of case suffixes and postpositions
a. Stem + case Suffix
[ ház-ban ]!
b. Stem + postposition
[ ház ]! [ mellett ]!
Again the vowel harmony facts follow straightforwardly from the restriction of vowel harmony to the PWord.
This analysis is based on the assumption that the different phonological behaviour of case suffixes is a
consequence of their different status in morphosyntax, and predicts that there should be substantial
morphosyntactic differences between the two types of items. In the following section, I will show that this
prediction is unwarranted.
3.
Properties of Case Suffixes and Postpositions
In this section, I discuss common properties of (section 3.1) and differences between case suffixes and
postpositions (section 3.2). It will turn out that both types of lexemes behave identically with respect to syntax,
and differ only in phonological behavior, providing strong evidence against assigning them to different
morphosyntactic classes. Essential parts of the discussion are based on the excellent summary of research on
the syntax of adpositional elements in Kiss (2002:184). Following Kiss, I will restrict the term “postposition”
here to items behaving syntactically as alatt, ‘below’ in (1). Hungarian also has a class of items such as együtt,
'together' which are semantically similar to postpositions, but have different syntactic properties. These are
called “postpositional adverbs'' in the following and are used to highlight common properties of case suffixes
and postpositions.
3.1.
Common Properties of Case Suffixes and Postpositions
While postpositional adverbs, such as együtt, ‘together’, combine noun phrases which are already case-marked
(együtt requires nouns marked by –val/-vel, 'with'5), true postpositions and case suffixes combine with bare
nouns without any previous case marking (highlighted here by ‘"’ on the noun):6
(6)
Combinatorial properties of adpositional elements
a. Case suffixes
b. Postpositions
c. Postpositional adverbs
János-"-hoz
János-" mellett
János-sal együtt
János-"-to
János-" next:to
János-with together
‘to John’
‘next to John’
‘together with John’
*János-sal-hoz
*János-sal mellett
*János-" együtt
Note that this property also sets case suffixes and postpositions apart from most prepositions in Indoeuropean
languages which typically combine with case-marked NPs. A second property which unites case suffixes and
postpositions is the fact that they always occur right-adjacent to the head noun. Thus a modifier such as
pontosan, 'exactly' is impossible between the noun and the case suffix/postposition (7-a,b). Instead, it has to
appear in front of the whole noun phrase. In contrast to this, modifiers of postpositional adverbs are always leftadjacent to the adverb and cannot precede the noun phrase (7-c):
(7)
Adjacency reqirements for case suffixes/postpositions
a. Case suffixes
b. Postpositions
c. Postpositional adverbs
pontosan János-hoz
pontosan János mellett
János-sal teljesen együtt
exactly János-to
exactly János next:to
János-with completely together
‘exactly to John’
‘exactly next to John’
‘completely together with John’
*János-pontosan-hoz
*János pontosan mellett
*teljesen János együtt
This contrast suggests that case suffixes/postpositions form a phrase together with NPs while postpositional
adverbs are actually verbal or clause-level modifiers.7
The third common property of case suffixes and postpositions is their agreement with pronominal heads.
If case suffixes or postpositions combine with a pronoun, they agree in person and number with it (8-a,b).
Again, this is not true for postpositional adverbs which remain uninflected in this environment (8-c):
(8)
Agreement with pronominal heads
a. Case suffixes
b. Postpositions
c. Postpositional adverbs
te benn-ed
te mellett-ed
te vel-ed együtt-"
you in-2sg
You next:to-2sg
you with-2sg together
‘inside of you’
‘next to you’
‘together with you’
*te ben-"
*te mellett-"
*te vel-ed együtt-ed
On the other hand, agreement of case suffixes/postpositions is restricted to pronominal heads. If they combine
with a full NP, agreement is not possible. Interestingly, this sets postpositional agreement apart from agreement
in nominal possessor phrases which is structurally quite similar: In both constructions, the agreeing head is to
the right of the agreement target which is unmarked for case and uses exactly the same agreement affixes. With
the possessor construction, agreement is obligatory with pronouns and full NPs:8,9
(9)
Non-agreement with full NPs
a. Case suffixes
b. Postpositions
c. Possessor noun phrase
te benn-ed
te mellett-ed
a
te
kert-ed
you in-2sg
you next:to-2sg
the you garden-2sg
‘inside of you’
‘next to you’
‘your garden’
Péter-ben-"
Péter mellett-"
a Péter kert-je
Peter-in
Peter next:to
the Peter garden-3sg
‘inside of Peter’
‘next to Peter’
‘Peter's garden’
*Péter-benn-e
*Péter-mellet-e
*a Péter kert-"
Closely connected to the agreement data is the fact that both case suffixes and postpositions license pro-drop of
pronominal arguments for all persons and numbers:
(10)
Pro-drop with case suffixes/postpositions
a. Case suffixes
"
b. Postpositions
benn-ed
"
mellett-ed
c. Postpositional adverbs
"
vel-ed
együtt
(you) in-2sg
(you) next:to-2sg
(you) with-2sg together
‘inside of you’
‘next to you’
‘together with you’
Here there is no detectable contrast to postpositional adverbs since these require always case suffixes which
independently license Pro-Drop.
A final property case suffixes and postpositions share is that both undergo demonstrative concord. In
Hungarian, NPs with a demonstrative always require the definite article. If the NP occurs with a case suffix or a
postposition, these have to follow the article and after the head noun:
(11)
Demonstrative concord
a. Case suffixes:
ah-hoz a
fiú-hoz
that-to the boy-to
‘to that boy’
*az a fiú-hoz/*a-hoz a fiú
b. Postpositions:
az alatt a fa alatt
that under the tree under
‘under that tree’
*az a fa alatt/*az alatt a fa
c. Postpositional
adverbs:
az-zal
a fiú-val együtt
that-with the boy-with together
‘together with that boy’
*az-zal együtt a fiú-val együtt
Again, postpositional adverbs do not participate in this pattern. Thus együtt in (11-c) occurs only once.
3.2.
Differences between Case Suffixes and Postpositions
Apart from the different behavior with respect to vowel harmony, there are only two systematic differences
between case suffixes and postpositions. 10 First, postpositions allow ellipsis under coordination of the
postposition and the head noun while case suffixes do not:
(12)
Ellipsis of head noun
a. Ellipsis of head noun with postpositions
a ház elõtt és a ház mögött
the house before and the house behind
‘before and behind the house’
!
a ház elõtt és a ház mögött
b. Non-ellipsis of head noun with case suffixes
a ház-tól
és a ház-ból
!
*a ház-tól és a ház-ból
the house-from:inside and the house-from:outside
‘from inside and from outside the house’ (E!.Kiss, 2002:184)
(13)
Ellipsis of adposition
a. Ellipsis of postpositions
a ház elõtt és a garázs elõtt
the house before and the garage before
‘before the house and the garage’
!
b. Non-ellipsis of case suffixes
a ház-nál
és a garázs-nál
!
the house-at and the garage-at
‘at the house and the garage’ (E!.Kiss, 2002:184)
a ház elõ tt és a garázs elõtt
*a ház-nál és a garázs-nál
Second, all case suffixes are monosyllabic, while all postpositions are bisyllabic, which can be seen from a full
list of items for both classes:
(14)
Full listing of case suffixes and postpositions
Case suffixes
Postpositions
-nak/-nek
dative alatt, alól, alá
‘under’
-ban/-ben
‘in’
-ból/-bõl
‘into’ elõtt, elõl, elé
-on/-en/-ön
‘on’
-ról/-rõl
‘from’ között, közül, közé
-ra/-re
‘onto’ mellett, mellõl, mellé ‘besides’
-ná/-nél
‘at’
-tól/-tõl
‘from’ miatt
‘because of’
-hoz/-hez/-höz
‘to’
‘without’
-val/-vel
‘with’ szerint
mögött, mögül, mögé ‘behind’
‘in front of’
felett, felõl, felé
helyett
‘above’
‘between’
‘instead of’
nélkül
‘according to’
iránt
‘towards’
Taken together, it seems that case suffixes and postpositions share much more properties than they have
differences:
(15)
Summary of common properties and differences
Common Properties
Differences
Combinatorial Properties
Vowel Harmony
Adjacency Requirement
Syllable Number
Agreement with Pronominal Heads Ellipsis
Licensing of Pro-Drop
Demonstrative Concord
Moreover, all common properties (the left column of (15) of case suffixes and postpositions are clearly
syntactic properties, while the syllable number of items and the behavior with respect to vowel harmony are of
phonological nature. Thus case suffixes and postpositions converge in morphosyntax while they diverge in
phonology. The only property for which this is not completely straightforward is the ability to license ellipsis.
Ellipsis under coordination is a classical PF-phenomenon sensitive to both, syntactic and phonological
information. Thus for an item like -ban/-ben , ‘inside’ in principle either the fact that it is a morphologically
bound element, or its phonological shape could be responsible for the fact that it does not allow ellipsis.
However, there is strong evidence that bound elements in Hungarian can be in principle involved in ellipsis. For
example, the item -ként which is traditionally treated as a suffix and which cannot appear without a preceding
head noun can be omitted in the first constituent of a coordinated structure:
(16)
Noun ellipsis with compounds and affixes
a. orvos- és bába-képzés
doctor and midwife-education
‘doctors' and midwives' training’
b. feleség- és anya-ként
wive
and mother-as
‘as wive and mother’ (E!.Kiss,2002:185)
While the details of ellipsis in Hungarian are still poorly understood, this means that the process is not restricted
to free morphemes and more likely to be sensitive to phonological factors than to the affix/stem distinction.11
Now, if case suffixes and postpositions differ only in phonological terms, the most straightforward
analysis is to postulate only one morphosyntactic category for both, and to attribute the differences to
phonological properties of the respective items. Indeed, there is one phonological difference between both
classes which cannot be reduced to other morphosyntactic or phonological factors: the fact that postpositions
have two syllables while case suffixes are monosyllabic. In the following, I will pursue the idea that all
differences between the two classes can be derived from the syllable number of the respective items.
4.
Redefining the Phonological Word in Hungarian
The general proposal I make for the analysis of case suffixes and postpositions is summarized in (17):
(17)
Proposal for the analysis of case suffixes/postpositions
a. Case suffixes and postpositions are syntactic heads of the same syntactic category
b. Differences between both classes follow from the fact
that case suffixes are monosyllabic and postpositions are bisyllabic
This proposal implies that at the morphosyntactic level there is only one class of elements comprising both, the
items traditionally called case suffixes and those called postpositions. I will assume that this class is the
functional nominal category Kase which projects phrases in syntax and selects DPs. 12 All differences between
items of this category are attributed to phonological constraints which are ultimately based on the different
phonological shapes of these items. The main argument for treating Kase markers as syntactically independent
items is the fact that they are not restricted to be bound to noun stems. Thus with pro-dropped pronominal
arguments, case suffixes and postpositions appear without a noun stem:13
(18)
Case suffixes/postpositions without nominal stem
a. Case suffixes
" benn-ed
you in-2sg
‘inside of you’
b. Postpositions
" mellett-ed
you next:to-2sg
‘next to you’
The crucial task for the discussion is hence to account for the vowel harmony and ellipsis facts without making
recourse to two different morphosyntactic categories. Maintaining the idea that vowel harmony in Hungarian
holds at the level of the PWord, the proposal by Nespor & Vogel repeated schematically in (19) is problematic
since our working assumption is that both case suffixes and postpositions are syntactically independent
elements.
(19)
Definition of the PWord in Hungarian (Nespor & Vogel, 1986):
A PWord in Hungarian is either a. or b.
a. a stem and any linearly adjacent string of suffixes
b. any element not integrated into a PWord by a.
I propose to replace this by the following definition:
(20)
New definition of the PWord in Hungarian
A Phonological Word in Hungarian is either a. or b.
a. a lexical stem and any right-adjacent string of
monosyllabic functional elements from the extended projection of the stem
b. a minimally bisyllabic functional head.
This definition still refers to morphosyntactic criteria (the extended functional projection), but abandons the use
of the affix/word distinction. To see how this works reconsider the examples from (5) repeated here as (21):14
(21)
Prosodic structure of case suffixes and postpositions
a. Stem + Case Suffix
[ ház ban ]!
b. Stem + Postposition
[ ház ]! [ mellett ]!
Both ban and mellett belong to the extended functional projection of ház, but only ban forms a PWord with ház
since it is monosyllabic. Since according to (20) functional heads not integrated into the prosodic structure of a
lexical head form PWords on their own , mellett gets a separate PWord domain. The vowel harmony facts then
follow just as in the approach of N&P. For the ellipsis data we can assume that ellipsis under coordination can
only delete or strand PWords. Based on the discussion above, this seems to be a reasonable first approximation
to the facts.
A potential problem for this analysis are inflectional suffixes (i.e., functional elements) which are
bisyllabic, but nonetheless undergo vowel harmony. Examples of this type occur in Hungarian verbal inflection,
where all suffixes undergo some form of harmony, but besides a majority of monosyllabic affixes, there are
also bisyllabic ones. Notice that Hungarian has two types of verbal paradigms called subjective and objective,
where the subjective one is used roughly with intransitive verbs and transitive verbs with indefinite objects,
while the subjective forms are used with transitive verbs and definite objects.15 (22) shows representative forms
of the indicative present tense paradigms for both types of conjugation (néz, ‘watch’; fürdik, ‘wash’; lát, ‘see’):
(22)
Indicative present tense paradigms for representative verbs
subjective objective subjective objective
1sg néz-ek
néz-em
fürd-öm
lát-om
2sg néz-el
néz-ed
fürd-esz
lát-od
3sg néz!
néz -i
fürd-ik
lát-ja
1pl néz-ünk
néz-zük
fürd-ünk
lát-juk
2pl néz-tek
néz-itek
fürd-ötök
lát-játok
3pl néz-nek
néz-ik
fürd-enek lát-ják
According to (20), bisyllabic affixes such as -enek and -játok should form independent PWords just as
postpositions and should not undergo vowel harmony with the preceding verb stem. Nevertheless, -játok
appears with the front variant -itek after front vowel stems (as in néz-itek), and -anak has the fronted version
-enek as in ért-enek, ‘they are of interest’ (subjective conjugation).
However, at least for the objective paradigm there is independent evidence that the segmentation in (22)
underanalyzes the data. Thus Bartos (1997, 2000) shows that syntactically the contrast between subjective and
objective conjugation is actually the difference between a paradigm without object agreement and one with
object agreement. Rebrus (2000) and Trommer (2003) argue using morphophonological and morphosyntactic
evidence that the objective paradigms in Hungarian contain segmentable object markers, often zero, but
standardly surfacing as -i with front vowel and as -ja with back vowel stems. The objective forms from (22) are
hence to be analyzed as in (23), where each verb form has the structure Stem – object agreement – subject
agreement:
(23)
Proper segmentation of objective verb forms
objective objective
1sg néz-"-em lát-"-om
2sg néz-"-ed lát-"-od
3sg néz-i-"
lát-ja-"
1pl néz-z-ük
lát-j-uk
2pl néz-i-tek lát-já-tok
3pl néz-i-k
lát-ják
Crucially, under this analysis, all overt markers for subject and object agreement in objective verb forms are
monosyllabic, and form a PWord with the preceding verb stem. One of the pieces of evidence for this
segmentation is that all subjective and objective forms for the 2pl basically have the affix -tok/-tek/-tök,
preceded by -i in néz-i-tek, and by -já in lát-já-tok.
Bisyllabic affixes in the subjective paradigm are more problematic because they cannot be segmented
into more basic parts in any obvious way. However they all share a crucial property which sets them apart from
postpositions: they exhibit a bisyllabic and a monosyllabic variant according to phonological context. Thus the
3pl marker is -enek after a cluster such as rd as in fürd-enek, but only -nek after a verb ending in a single
consonant such as z as in néz-nek. This suggests that the definition in (20) must be slightly revised as in (24):
(24)
New definition of the PWord in Hungarian (revised)
A Phonological Word in Hungarian is either a. or b.
a. a lexical stem and any right-adjacent string of
functional elements from the extended projection of the stem
which have at least one monosyllabic variant
b. a minimally bisyllabic functional head.
According to (24) -enek belongs to the PWord of a preceding stem because it has the monosyllabic variant -nek,
while postpositions such as mellett do not because they are consistently bisyllabic. Thus in this version the
definition of the PWord in Hungarian seems to be basically correct. Note however that this definition is
intended here only as a descriptive means for the current discussion without any theoretical status. In the
following section, I provide an optimality-theoretic analysis of the PWord in Hungarian which replaces this
definition by a small set of optimality-theoretic alignment constraints.
5.
An OT-Analysis
The following analysis shows that the approach to the PWord in Hungarian proposed in the last section can be
implemented straightforwardly in technical terms, more specifically in Optimality Theory (OT; Prince &
Smolensky, 1993).
Most OT-constraints on the interface between morphosyntax and the PWord proposed in the literature
require some type of correlation between the grammatical word and the PWord.16 However, the notion of
“grammatical word” itself is becoming more and more questionable in the light of recent developments in
generative syntax and morphology (see Julien, 2002 and Trommer, 2004 for recent discussion), The boundaries
of PWords in Hungarian seem to be crucially governed by constraints not related to the boundaries of
grammatical words. Therefore, two of the three constraints I will assume here do not have direct counterparts
in earlier work. Nonetheless, I think that the validity of these (or similar) constraints extends far beyond the
Hungarian facts discussed here.
A basic precondition for the analysis is a formal means to differentiate between functional morphemes
which are consistently bisyllabic (e.g. közül, ‘between’) and those which are variably mono- or bi-syllabic
depending on the phonological context (e.g. the 3pl agreement marker -(e)nek). The latter class is a subclass of
a larger group of items having initial vowels alternating with zero, a group also comprising markers alternating
between a monosyllabic and a vowelless allomorph, such as the nominal plural marker -(V)k (cf. ajtó-k, ‘doors’
vs. ház-ak, ‘houses’). My approach here will be based on the most explicit optimality-theoretic analysis of these
affixes, the one by Stiebels and Wunderlich (1999, henceforth S&W).17 S&W assume the segment structure
model of Clements and Hume (1995), where consonants are represented as a root node linked to a c-place node
(mediated by an oral cavity node ignored here), while vowels are represented by a root node which is linked to
a vocalic node (via an oral cavity node and a c-place node). The prosodic structures of a consistently
monosyllabic marker such as the dative suffix -nek18 and of a consistently bisyllabic postposition such as közül,
‘between’ can then be represented as in (25) and (26) (where the structure (Root,c-place) is abbreviated as C,
and the structure (Root,vocalic) is abbreviated as V). Underlyingly, i.e. in the lexical representations of these
markers, root nodes are present for all segments, but moras are specified only for vowels:
(25) a. Surface representation of –nek
b. Lexical representation of –nek
"
C
µ
|
V
µ
|
C
µ
C
V
C
n
e
k
n
e
k
(26) a. Surface representation of közül
b. Lexical representation of közül
Foot
"
"
µ
µ
µ
µ
µ
C
V
C
V
C
C
V
C
V
C
k
ö
z
ü
l
k
ö
z
ü
l
For affixes with a variable initial vowel, such as 3pl -(e)nek, S&W assume that they start with a vowel which
underlyingly projects a root node, but not a mora:
(27) a. Surface representation of –(e)nek
b. Lexical representation of –(e)nek
Foot
"
"
µ
µ
µ
µ
V
C
V
C
V
C
V
C
e
n
e
k
e
n
e
k
This difference in lexical representation also leads to a subtle difference in surface representation. Thus for
közül (26-a), both vowel moras are morphologically affiliated to the morpheme since they are already present in
the lexical entry. On the other hand, in (27-a) only the vowel mora of the second syllable is affiliated to the
morpheme –(e)nek, while the mora linked to the first vowel is inserted by phonology, and without any
morphological affiliation. Assuming Consistency of Exponence (McCarthy & Prince, 19993a,b; van
Oostendorp, 2005), morphological affiliation is never changed and also visible in surface structure. In the
following, I will make use of this difference in the morphological representation of moras to distinguish
variable affixes such as –enek from “truly” bisyllabic ones such as közül.
Before I turn to the positioning of PWords, I start with some basic assumptions about foot structure
inside of PWords. A main indicator of foot structure is word stress. However, main stress in Hungarian seems
to be assigned with respect to a prosodic constituent bigger than the PWord (Vogel, 1989),19 and there is
considerable disagreement in the literature on the existence, gradation and precise location of non-primary
stress in Hungarian (cf. Siptár and Törkenczy, 2000:21ff and the references cited there for different views). As
far as I can see, different views of the stress patterns and the corresponding foot structure are in principle
compatible with the following analysis of the PWord if low-level details in the implementation of the involved
constraints are changed accordingly. For the sake of explicitness, I will assume the footing proposed by Kager
(1995), where PWords are exhaustively footed by bisyllabic trochees (28), and only final syllables of PWords
with uneven syllables number allow a monosyllabic foot. (28) shows the assumed foot structures for the
corresponding examples in (29) indicating the stress patterns described by Kerek (1971). Stressed (head
syllables) are marked by boldface:
(28)
Hungarian foot structure
a.
b.
c.
d.
(29)
[# #]
[# #] [#]
[# #] [# #]
[# #] [# #] [#]
Stress patterns according to the footing in (28)
a. bol.dog
b. bol.dog.ság
c. bol.dog.ta.lan
d. bol.dog.ta.lan.ság
‘happpy’
“happyness”
“unhappy”
“unhappiness”
This pattern of footing can be derived by the standard constraints in (30) (Kager, 1999) under the ranking in
(31). Note that I write the directionality parameters of Generalized Alignment constraints such as Align
(Ft,",PWd,") by arrows (where ‘"’ = R(ight), and ‘#’ = L(eft)) to enhance readability.
(30)
Constraints governing foot structure in Hungarian
RhType=T
Feet are trochaic
Parse-"
Syllables are parsed into feet
Max-Ft-Bin
Feet consist maximally of two syllables
20
Align (Ft,",PWd,")
(31)
The right edge of feet is right-aligned
to the right edge of a prosodic word
Ranking: RhType=T, Parse ", Max- Ft-Bin » Min-Ft-Bin » Align (Ft,",PWd,")
Note that Foot-Binarity is decomposed here following Everett (2003) into a minimality and a maximality
constraint which are only sensitive to syllabic, but not to moraic binarity of feet. The minimality constraint is
not included in the rankings because its potential effects already fall out from other constraints (Parse "-and
Align (Ft,",PWd,"). The first three constraints are undominated and not crucially ranked with respect to each
other. They are never violated in Hungarian. Align (Ft,",PWd,") is massively violated in optimal forms, but
suppresses degenerate feet in even-numbered PWords because monosyllabic feet lead to additional foot
boundaries inducing additional violations of the constraint (31-b,c):
(32)
Input: " " " "
RhType=T Parse " Max-Ft-Bin Align (Ft,",PWd,")
**
$ a. [##] [##]
b. [#][#] [##]
***!,**
c. [##][#][#]
**,*!
*!
d. [# # # ][#]
*!
e. # # [##]
f. [##] [##]
*!
**
In PWords with uneven syllable number, Align (Ft,",PWd,") has the additional effect that the single
degenerate foot which gets inevitable by the higher-ranked constraints is located at the right word edge:
(33)
Input: " " " " "
RhType=T Parse " Max-Ft-Bin Min-Ft-Bin Align(Ft,",PWd,")
*
*,***
b. [##][#] [##]
*
**,***!
c. [#] [##] [##]
*
**,***!*
$ a. [##] [##] [#]
*!
d. [##] [# # #]
*!
e. [##] [##] #
f. [##] [#] [#]
*!**
To keep the candidate sets to be considered small in the following discussions, I will omit any candidates
violating RhType=T, Parse-#, and Max-Ft-Bin from considerations assuming that the constraints on PWord
structure are ranked lower than these, but above Align(Ft,",PWd,").
These preliminaries allow now an analysis of the Hungarian PWord which is crucially based on the
three alignment constraints in (34):
(34)
Constraints governing the PWord in Hungarian
Align(LEX, #,PWd,#)
Align the left edge of lexical roots
with the left edge of a PWord
Align(HdFoot, #,PWd, #) Align the left edge of syntactic terminals
corresponding to two lexically headed syllables
with the left edge of a PWord
Align(PWd, ",SD, ")
Align the right edge of PWords
with the right edge of a Spellout Domain
The first constraint, Align(LEX,#,PWd,#), a slightly different formulation of a constraint proposed in
McCarthy & Prince (1993:112), expresses the exceptionless generalization that every lexical root in Hungarian
coincides with the beginning of a PWord. I assume that it is crucially undominated in Hungarian.
Align(HdFoot,#,PWd,#) is responsible for formally distinguishing consistently bisyllabic functional elements
from those with (potentially) less syllables. A lexically headed syllable is a syllable whose head (i.e. whose
leftmost mora) is lexically (morphologically) affiliated. Thus postpositions such as közül correspond to two
lexically headed syllables because the vowel moras of both syllables are present underlyingly, while case
suffixes are monosyllabic, and variable terminal elements such as -(e)nek correspond to two syllables, but only
one if them is morphologically affiliated. Terminals corresponding to two lexically headed syllables are called
here “Head Feet” since they instantiate syntactic terminals (= syntactic heads) corresponding to canonical
(bisyllabic) lexical feet.
The notion of ‘syntactic terminal’ employed in the formulation of the constraint includes the functional
items traditionally called ‘inflectional suffixes’, but not derivational affixes since I assume - following
Chomsky (1970) and Anderson (1992) - that morphology is partially in the lexicon and partially syntactic.
Especially, I take it for granted that derivational morphology happens in the lexicon, while inflectional
morphology is in the syntax or postsyntactic. Hence, I adopt the split morphology hypothesis in the form of
weak lexicalism (cf. Spencer, 1991 and references cited there).
For the sake of concreteness, I assume that the distinction between lexical and syntactic closed-class
elements is expressed by a minimal distinction of bar-levels in the sense of X-bar theory (Selkirk, 1982,
DiSciulllo & Williams, 1987): Derivational affixes such as –talan/-telen have bar level -1, and project to level
0 only after combination with an appropriate complement, while all other morphemes have bar level 0. The
notion of a syntactic terminal can then be defined as in (35):
(35)
Definition syntactic terminal
An X0 constituent $ is a syntactic terminal iff it
a) is the lowest X0 node in its projection line
b) is not immediately dominated by a node % which also immediately dominates any X-1 nodes
(36) shows representative examples of syntactic terminals according to this definition (in boldface). (36-a) is a
bare noun, (36-b) a verb head-adjoined to T(ense) (as in tanul-t, ‘(s)he learned), (36-c) a compound, and (36-d)
an adjective (gond-talan, ‘careless’) derived by the combination of the derivational affix –talan, and the noun
gond (‘thought). Note that the higher V0 in (36-b) and the higher N0 in (36-c) are not syntactic terminals since
they are not the lowest X0s in their projection lines, and N0 in (36-d) is not a syntactic terminal because it is
immediately dominated by a node (A0) which immediately dominates a X-1 (A-1):
(36)
a.
V0
b.
N0
c.
d.
N0
V0
T0
N0
N0
N0
ház
tanul
t
könyv
tár
gond
A0
A-1
talan
The third alignment constraint Align(PWd,",SD,") demands that the right edge of each PWord coincides with
the right edge of a Spellout Domain (SD). Spellout Domains are morphosyntactic domains argued for in
Trommer (2004) to be crucial for capturing crosslinguistic affix ordering generalizations and are defined as
follows:
(37)
Definition of Spellout Domain
a. Each lexical head L is a member of its own Spellout Domain.
b. A functional head F is a member of the spellout domain of L iff it is a head of the
extended projection of L and is string-adjacent to another member of L's Spellout Domain.
Here are three simple examples (Spellout Domains are indicated by boldface). (38-a) is a Kase phrase (KP)
where mellett (K) takes a DP as a complement. The lexical head is ház. A and mellett are functional heads
from its extended projection and string-adjacent to it. So the Spellout Domain is a ház mellett. In (38-b) the
verb néz has moved to the tense head -t and the V-Tense complex has then moved to the agreement head Agr.
The Spellout Domain of néz is néz-t-él since both are heads of the verb's extended projection, and -t is stringadjacent to néz and –él is string-adjacent to -t which we have already established as part of the Spellout
Domain. Te is string-adjacent to néz, but not a head of its extended projection, so it is not part of its Spellout
Domain. The same holds for te in (38-c). Here however, te separates a from the lexical head. Since a is not
string-adjacent to ház or -ad, the only other members of the Spellout Domain, it is not part of the Spellout
Domain of ház even though it is a head of its extended projection. Notice that details of syntactic analysis might
be relevant for the definition of Spellout Domains (for example treating attributive adjectives as functional
heads of the nominal extended projection or not substantially alters the relevant Spellout Domains for nouns).
However it is irrelevant for the following discussion whether ház and mellett are in their base position as
suggested in (38-a) or the order of both elements results from movement operations, since the crucial factor for
establishing Spellout Domains is string adjacency.
(38)
Examples of Spellout Domains
a. [ [ [a]D [ [ház]N ]NP]DP [mellett]K ]KP
b. [ [te]DP [ [ [néz]V [-t]T ]T [-él]Agr ]Agr [ [ti]T [ [tj]V ]VP]TP ]AgrP
c. [ [a]D [ [te]DP [ [ház]N ]NP [-ad]Poss ]PossP ]DP
Together with Align(LEX,#,PWd,#), Align(PWd,",SD,") has the effect that a PWord will consist of a
lexical stem and all following functional elements, if no higher-ranked constraints intervene. Assuming that
there are no symmetric counter-constraints making reference to the opposite edges of PWords (i.e., Align(LEX,
",PWd, ") and Align(PWd,# ,SD, #)), these constraints predict that functional elements following a stem
tend to be interpreted phonologically as affixes (forming a unit with the stem), while functional elements
preceding stems are more likely to be interpreted as independent items. This corresponds roughly to the often
observed crosslinguistic preference of suffixation over prefixation (Cutler et al., 1985) .
Let us now see how these constraints derive the correct boundaries of PWords in Hungarian. To be
maximally explicit about morphosyntactic alignment in the tableaus, I will separate morphemes belonging to
the same syntactic terminal by a dash (‘-’), and morphemes constituting different syntactic terminals by ‘+’.
Spellout domains are marked by continuous underlining. Thus the notation ‘könyv+tár’ implies two syntactic
terminals belonging to different Spellout Domains, ‘a+ház’ two syntactic terminals of the same Spellout
Domain, and ‘gond-talan’, two morphemes of the same syntactic terminal and Spellout Domain. Since
morphosyntactic alignment is the same for all candidates for a given input, these conventions will only be
applied to the input itself to avoid crammed candidate representations. (39) shows how Align (LEX,#,PWd,#)
imposes PWord structure on a word consisting of a single nominal root. (39-b) is excluded since the left edge
of ház is not aligned to the left edge of a PWord and violates Align (LEX,#,PWd, #):
(39)
ház, 'house'
Input: ház
$
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd, #) (HdFoot, #,PWd,#) (PWd,",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
a. [ (ház)]!
b. (ház)
*!
Basically, the same holds for compounds. Here Align(LEX, #,PWd, #) ensures two PWords for two lexical
roots:
(40)
könyv-tár, 'library'
Input: könyv+tár
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd,#) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd,",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
$ a. [ (könyv) ]! [ (tár) ] !
b. [ (könyv) (tár) ]!
*!
c. (könyv) (tár)
*!*
The example in (41) with a (monosyllabic) inflectional suffix demonstrates the crucial role of
Align(PWd,",SD,"): -nak must be integrated into the PWord starting with the lexical stem (41-a) since
leaving it without PWord structure (41-c) or assigning a separate PWord to it (41-b) leads to a PWord ([(lát)
]#) which is separated by one syllable from the right edge of the spellout domain and violates Align
(PWd,",SD,"):
(41)
lát-nak, ‘they see’
Input: láµt+anaµk
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd,#) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd,",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
$ a. [ (lát nak) ]!
b. [ (lát) ]! [ (nak) ]!
*!
c. [ (lát) ]! (nak)
*!
d. (lát) (nak)
*!
*
**
In ért-enek, ‘they understand’ the same affix appears in its bisyllabic form, and the front-harmonic variant (enek instead of –anak) indicates that it is part of the same PWord as the verb. Recall that –anak/-enek is not a
HdFoot: It does not correspond to two lexically headed syllables since only the second mora of the output
-eµneµk is also present underlyingly and lexically affiliated. Therefore (42-a) does not violate Align
(HdFoot,#,PWd,#):
(42)
ért-enek, ‘they understand’
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd,#) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd,",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
Input: éµµrt+eneµk
*
$ a. [ (ér te) (nek) ]!
b. [ (ér te) ]! [ (nek) ]!
*!
c. [ (ér) ]! [ (te nek) ]!
*!
*!
d. (ér) (te) (nek)
**
While monosyllabic (and variable) functional elements following a lexical head of the same Spellout Domain
are integrated into the same PWord the same is not true for items preceding a lexical head. The clearest
example for this observation is the definite article preceding a noun as a in a kert, ‘the garden’. While both
items belong to the same spellout domain (cf. the discussion of (38-a), a does not undergo vowel harmony and
does not form a PWord with kert. This follows from the assumed constraint system since no constraint requires
that the left edge of spellout domains coincides with a PWord and Align(LEX,#,PWd,#) favors a PWord
boundary at the left edge of the lexical root:
(43)
a kert, 'the garden
Input: a+kert
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd,#) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd,",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
*
$ a. (a) [ (kert) ]!
*!
b. [ (a) ]! [ (kert) ]!
c. [ (a kert) ]!
*!
d. [ (a) (kert) ]!
*!
*
e. (a) (kert)
*!
**
A more intricate case are the so-called ‘preverbs’, which constitute the majority of functional elements
preceding related lexical heads in Hungarian. Preverbs often seem to form a derivation-like unit with verbs
semantically21, but can be separated from the verb syntactically. For example, the preverb meg is written as one
orthographic word together with the verb néz in (44-a) but as an independent word in the synonymous sentence
(44-b), where it is separated from the verb by the finite auxiliary akart. Preverbs may even follow the verb
under specific syntactic conditions such as negation or imperative clauses (45):
(44)
Verb-adjacent and non-adjacent preverbs
a. János akar-t
meg-néz-ni
Janos want-PAST PERF-see-INF
egy film-(e)-t
a movie-ACC
b. János meg akar-t
néz-ni
egy film-(e)-t
Janos PERF want-PAST see-INF
a movie-ACC
‘Janos wanted to see a movie.’ (Farkas & Sadock, 1989:322)
(45)
Postverbal preverbs
a. Mari nem vág fel
Mari not cuts up
‘Mari is not showing off.’
b. Vág-j
fel!
cut-IMP up
‘Show off!’ (Farkas & Sadock, 1989:319/320)
Just as article-noun combinations, preverb-verb combinations never undergo vowel harmony (cf. be-zár, ‘close’
and át-tesz, ‘put over (to)’), but data such as (45) suggest that verb and preverb in this combination should
form a PWord under the analysis proposed here since fel is a functional element following a lexical head.
However É.Kiss (2002,58 ff.) provides convincing evidence from movement data that preverbs have phrasal
properties syntactically and cannot be affixes (or heads) selecting for the verb. I follow É.Kiss’s approach in
treating preverbs as lexically selected complements of verbs, which implies that preverbs are not heads of the
verb’s extended projection and its Spellout Domain, and the alignment constraints predict that preverbs will
never form a prosodic word with a corresponding verb, neither preverbally nor postverbally as shown in (46)
and (47):22
(46)
be-zár, ‘close’ (with preverb be)
Input: be+zár
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd,#) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd, ",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
*
$ a. (be)+[ (zár) ]!
*!
b. [ (be) ]! [ (zár) ]!
(47)
c. [ (be zár) ]!
*!
d. [ (be) (zár) ]!
*!
e. (be) (zár)
*!
zár be, ‘close!’ (with preverb be)
Input: zár+be
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd,#) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd, ",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
*
$ a. [ (zár) ]! (be)
b. [ (zár) ]! [ (be) ]!
*!
c. [ (zár be) ]!
*!
d. [(zár) (be) ]!
*!
e. (zár) (be)
*!
Let us turn finally to case suffixes and postpositions. In the familiar example a ház mellett, mellett is a headfoot, so Align(HdFoot,#,PWd,#) requires a separate PWord for it. As before, ház receives a PWord of its own
by the pressure of Align(LEX,#,PWd,#). Notice that the ranking of Align(HdFoot,#,PWd,#) above
Align(PWd,",SD,") is crucial because otherwise candidate (48-c) with one PWord and vowel harmony for
mellett would become optimal:
(48)
a ház mellett, ‘next to the house’
Input: a+ház+mellett
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd,#) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd,",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
*
$ a. (a) [ (ház) ]! [ (mel lett) ]!
b. (a) [ (ház) ]! (mel lett)
*!
c. (a) [ (ház) (mel lett) ]!
*!
*
*
***
*!
d. (a) (ház) (mel lett)
*
**
In the candidates for a ház-ban, -ban can either become an independent foot as in (49-b,c,d) or part of a binary
foot together with ház. However, assigning a separate foot to ban leads to violation of Align(PWd,",SD,") as
in (49-b,c). The only way to avoid this violation is to integrate ban into a foot and a PWord together with ház,
which does not violate any of the relevant constraints:
(49)
a ház-ban, ‘inside the house’
Input: a+ház+ban
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd,#) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd,",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
*
$ a. (a) [ (ház ban) ]!
b. (a) [ (ház) ]! [ (ban) ]!
*!
*
c. (a) [ (ház) ]! (ban)
*!
**
*
**
d. (a) [ (ház) ]! (ban)
*!
*
Basically, the same result is obtained for forms with pro-dropped pronominal heads of postpositions (50) and
case markers (51). While the empty pronoun is phonologically zero, it still leads to a left PWord boundary by
Align(LEX, #,PWd,#). The other alignment constraints again ensure that the following functional items are
integrated into the same PWord:
(50)
" mellett-e, ‘beside of it’
Input: "+mellett+e
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd,#) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd,",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
*
$ a. [ (" mel let) (t-e) ]!
b. [ (" mel let) ]! [ (t-e) ]!
*!
c. [ (" mel let) ]! (t-e)
*!
*
*
**
d. (" mel let)
(te)
*!
*
(51)
" benn-e, ‘inside of it’
Input: "+benn+e
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd,#) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd,",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
$ a. [ (" ben ne) ]!
b. [ (" ben) ]! [ (ne) ]!
*!
c. [ (" ben) ]! (ne)
*!
*
*
**
*!
d. (" ben) (ne)
The analysis of the corresponding form rá where the adposition -ra/-re and the agreement marker –a/-e merge
into a single syllable is identical since Align(LEX,#,PWd,#) again enforces a PWord boundary to the left of
the zero noun, and hence to the left of rá, while Align(PWd,",SD,") induces a right PWord boundary at the
right edge of rá. Just as benne, rá is assigned the status of an independent PWord.
Recall now that, as argued in section 4, all items traditionally analyzed as inflectional suffixes are
monosyllabic. However, this is not true for derivational suffixes, which unlike derivational prefixes (such as be
in be-zár, 'close' from example (46)) must be part of the same PWord as the root since they undergo vowel
harmony and can be bisyllabic. An example is the adjective-forming suffix -talan/-telen:
(52)
A Bisyllabic derivational affix
a. gond-talan
‘careless’
care-less
b. lélek-telen
‘witless’
soul-less
Assuming that derivational affixes form a syntactic terminal together with the root (or stem) to which they are
attached, the proposed constraints derive the correct result. Note that the derivational suffixes are part of the
Spellout Domain since they are part of the lexical head (the stem):
(53)
lélek-telen, ‘wit-less’
Input: lélek-telen
Align
Align
Align
Align
(LEX,#,PWd, #) (HdFoot,#,PWd,#) (PWd,",SD,") (Ft,",PWd,")
$ a. [ (lé.lek)(te.len) ]!
b. [ (lé.lek)]![(te.len) ]!
*!
c. [(lé.lek)]!(te.len)
*!
d. (lé.lek) (te.len)
6.
*!
The Analysis of Asbury (2005)
Asbury (2005) provides a recent analysis of Hungarian adpositional elements which also largely equates case
suffixes and postpositions. According to her analysis, both types of markers realize the syntactic category P
(adposition). However, only postpositions result from the direct spellout of P (54-a), while case markers are
affixes, indirectly realizing P by the mechanism of Alternative Realization (54-b), which allows to express a
head alternatively by an affix on a lower head (Emonds, 1987):
(54)
Hungarian adpositions in Asbury (2005)
a. Postposition
b. Case Suffix
PP
DP
D
PP
mellett
DP
NP
D
P
NP
N
N-ban
Apart from data discussed in section 3.2. Asbury (pp. 75-76) cites two additional pieces of evidence for
assigning a different morphosyntactic status to case suffixes and postpositions. First, the adjective-forming
suffix -i can be added to specific postpositions (55-a), but not to case suffixes (55-b):
(55)
Adjectivizing –i with postpositions and case suffixes
a. a híd
mögött-i
the bridge behind-i
b. *a
kert-ben-i
the garden-in-i
út
road
virág
‘the road behind the bridge’
‘the flower in the garden’
flower
Second, specific postpositions can be followed by the case suffixes -ra and -ról, while other case suffixes
cannot:
(56)
-ra and –ról following other adpositions
a. három óra
thee hour
után-ra
‘by after three o'clock’
after-on
b. *a híd-on-ról
the bridge-on-from
Asbury attributes the restricted occurrence of -i to the generalization that derivational affixes such as -i cannot
occur outside inflectional ones, while the distribution of -ra and -ról follows from a constraint against multiple
case suffixes in the same morphological word.
However, as Marácz (1989) notes, not all postpositions license -ra/-ról and -i-suffixation. Especially,
alá, alól and mögé do not:23
(57)
Impossible combinations of –ra/-ról and postpositions
a. *alá-ra
under-onto
b. *mögé-rõl
behind-from
This cannot be due to a semantic incompatibility of -ra/-ról and directional expressions since these can be
affixed to specific adverbs with similar meaning:
(58)
Possible combinations of –ra/-ról and directional adverbs
a. a híd-on
át-ra
the bridge-on over-onto
‘to over the bridge’
b. a híd-on
the bridge-on
‘from over the bridge’
át-ról
over-from
There seem to be basically two possibilities: the ability to combine with –i and –ra/-ról depends on a yet
unknown systematic property of the involved postpositions, or it is an idiosyncratic syntactic feature of these
items. In both cases, it would not be the status of the relevant adpositions as syntactically free elements which
accounts for their behaviour, but a different syntactic property.
Even if it turns out to be necessary to capture the fact that monosyllabic adpositions never combine
with –i and –ra/-ról, this can be achieved without recourse to their alleged status as affixes. Thus Asbury’s
constraint against multiple case affixes in a morphological word can be reformulated as a constraint against
multiple monosyllabic adpositions in a spellout domain. In fact, attested identity avoidance phenomena seem
often to invoke a combination of morphosyntactic and phonological criteria, e.g. the ban again multiple
homophonous (or semi-homophonous) object clitics in Romance (Grimshaw, 1997) or the prohibition of more
than one sibilant formative in English nouns (Yip, 1998). The special behaviour of –i can be interpreted as
prosodic subcategorization for a (potential) prosodic word which is satisfied by bisyllabic adpositions as well
as nouns and adverbs, but not by monosyllabic adpositions. Similar cases of functional elements selecting
specific prosodic environments are comparative and superlative affixes in English (cf. e.g. Embick and Noyer,
2001), and possessive markers in Ulwa (McCarthy & Prince, 1993).
On the other hand, as Asbury herself notes, assigning case suffixes and postpositions different
morphosyntactic status makes it difficult to provide a unified account of demonstrative concord. Moreover,
analyzing case suffixes as affixes makes it unexpected that they can occur without an overt base. To solve the
latter problem, Asbury introduces two features for morphemes, [+/-H] which determines whether the morpheme
can act as a host for affixation, and [+/-D] which states whether it must attach to a potential host inside the
same phrase. Case suffixes are [+H+D], and postpositions [+H-D]. As far as I can see, these features would in
effect obviate the need to invoke different representations for adpositions by alternative realization, but run into
a different empirical problem: They predict counter to fact that case suffixes should form a morphological word
and show vowel harmony with pronouns in forms such as the ones in (59):
(59)
Pronouns-case-suffix combinations
a.
b.
én nál-am
õ nál-a
I with-1sg
(s)he with-3sg
‘together with `me’ ‘together with him/her’
Asbury tries to solve this problem by assuming that Hungarian pronouns are specified [-H] and hence never
take affixes. However, at least the third person pronoun õ allows regular plural and accusative affixes (cf. õ –t,
‘him,her’; õ-k, ‘they’; õ-k-et, ‘them’).
Most crucially, Asbury has to assume arbitrary morphosyntactic features to distinguish case markers and
postpositions, which ignores the clear correlation between phonological (bisyllabic vs. monosyllabic) shape and
morphophonological behaviour of adpositional elements. Both problems can be avoided if case markers and
adposition are differentiated on phonological ground instead of assigning them different morphosyntactic
representations.
7.
Summary
In this paper, I have shown that the different phonological behavior of case suffixes and postpositions in
Hungarian can be derived from the different phonological shapes of the involved elements, and a small number
of optimality-theoretic constraints. This analysis is superior to approaches attributing the phonological
differences to different morphosyntactic characteristics of case suffixes and postpositions since these fail to
account for the complete agreement of both with respect to morphosyntax, and the fact that the alleged case
suffixes can occur without any overt nominal base. The Hungarian data suggest that the notion “grammatical
word” might be ultimately unnecessary and misleading for a deeper understanding of the PWord which seem
to be crucially connected to smaller morphological units (roots and terminal elements) and their phonological
properties.
Notes
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
All Hungarian examples in this paper are in Hungarian orthography which is close to IPA. Orthographic
<sz> corresponds to /s/, <s> to /$/, front vowels are indicated by umlaut (e.g. <ü> for /y/) and acute
accent marks vowel length.
N&P treat preverbal items such as oda- and be- as prefixes. However, this analysis is actually highly
questionable since they can be separated from the verb to which they seem to be attached in specific
syntactic environments. This problem is discussed in detail in section 5.
It is well-known that a number of Hungarian affixes fail to undergo vowel harmony even though they
arguably are in a prosodic position which normally makes harmony obligatory (cf. e.g.. Siptár and
Törkenczy, 2000:63 ff.). While most of these affixes contain the so-called ‘neutral vowels’ e and i
whose non-harmonizing behavior seems to be due to their special status in the Hungarian vowel
systems, some of the non-harmonizing affixes contain other vowels (e.g. non-harmonizing –kor as in
egy-kor, ‘at one’). I think that the question of how to treat these exceptional items is orthogonal to the
problem of the general structure of the harmony domain. Both, N&P’s and my analysis make the
(wrong) predictions that these morphemes should exhibit harmony.
Unfortunately, there are only few independent phonological processes restricted to the Phonological
Word in Hungarian, which might serve as additional evidence for identifying PWord boundaries. Main
stress seems to be assigned with respect to a bigger prosodic domain (cf. the discussion in section 5).
Vogel (1989) argues that a process palatalizing /n/ before /j/ also applies inside the Phonological Word,
but this is largely irrelevant for the status of adpositions since no postpositions or case suffixes start with
/j/. In section 4, I conclude tentatively that the possibility of ellipsis is also closely related to the PWord.
The v in -val/-vel completely assimilates to preceding sibilants, as can be observed in János-sal.
The only exception to the generalization that a noun cannot be followed by two adpositions are forms
where the case markers –ra/re and –ról/-rõl follow specific postpositions. This construction is
discussed in section 6.
The adjacency of postposition and noun follows largely from the fact that modifiers such as adjectives
and quantifiers and also the definite article a always precede the head noun. The right-peripheral
position
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
of postpositions also sets them in the line of other lexical heads (such as nouns and verbs) in Hungarian
which generally occur in the same position.
Agreement with full NPs is possible if the NP is moved out of the phrase. Again, positions and case
suffixes behave alike in this respect. See Marácz (1986) and É.Kiss (2002:187).
As an anonymous reviewer notes, Bartos (2000), analyzes the suffix of possessed nouns (e.g. –je in a
Péter kert-je) as a possession marker and assumes zero agreement for possessor noun phrases with full
NPs. Since under both analyses the morphosyntax of adpositions and possessed nouns is similar, but
not identical, it does not matter for the general point here which of the two analyses is adopted.
See section 6 for differences which only involve specific classes of postpositions and case suffixes.
Note that -ként is phonologically extremely heavy having a long vowel and a complex coda, and also
fails to undergo vowel harmony as in anya-ként.
This category is suggested for case suffixes in Bartos (1999) and E!.Kiss (2002).
E!.Kiss (2002:188) claims that case markers and postpositions belong to different categories, but share
the same morphosyntactic characteristics, and are both suffixes. However, in her analysis, the relevant
“suffixation” is achieved by moving syntactically independent heads to the right of the noun head.
Hence just as in the analysis proposed here, both types of items project their own phrases in syntax, and
are not attached to nouns in the lexicon.
Syllable boundaries are marked here and in the following by spaces.
What counts as definite and indefinite here is a highly complex matter. See Bartos (1997, 1999, 2000)
and É.Kiss (2002) for discussion.
E.g. GRWD=PRWD, and Align-L in Kager (1999).
A rule-based analysis of these affixes based on different structural assumptions can be found in Siptár
and Törkenczy (2000).
Dative –nek also forms a quasi minimal pair with 3pl –(e)nek showing that the initial vowel of the latter
cannot be an epenthetic vowel inserted by general phonological processes.
Vogel argues that this constituent is the clitic group (cf. also Nespor & Vogel, 1986). which roughly
contains a PWord and adjacent clitic elements. I disregard positioning of main stress here since it seems
not to be relevant for the phenomena at hand.
Align (Ft,",PWd,") is called All-Ft-Rt in Kager (1995).
Cf. combinations with intransparent meaning such as be-csap, ‘cheat’ from the preverb be, ‘into’ and
the verb csap, ‘strike’ (Farkas & Sadock, 1989:320).
Note that be does not govern a Spellout Domain of its own since it is a functional, not a lexical head.
Therefore PWord boundaries at the right edge of be induce violations of Align (Pwd,",SD,").
Marácz states the incompatibility of -i-affixation with alá, alól and mögé without giving concrete
examples.
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